The Unwritten Rules Are Running Your Team
Every team has rules.
Some of them are written down, like policies, procedures, and job descriptions. Some teams even have a set of team norms created during a retreat three years ago and now living peacefully in a shared drive somewhere.
But some of the most powerful rules in a workplace have never been written down at all.
How quickly are you expected to respond to an email?
Is it okay to disagree with the boss in a meeting?
When someone is struggling, are you supposed to offer help—or stay in your lane?
When someone is struggling, are they allowed to ask for help—or expected to “just figure it out”?
Can you say, “I don’t have capacity for that”?
If someone misses a deadline, do you address it directly or quietly work around them?
These are the unwritten rules. And whether you realize it or not, your team has a whole bunch of them.
The problem isn’t necessarily that they exist. Every group of humans develops norms over time. The problem is that we rarely stop to make sure everyone knows what they are, agrees with them, and understands how they work.
So, people guess.
And you know how I feel about guessing.
One person thinks, “If it’s really urgent, they’ll call me.” Another thinks, “If I send you an email marked urgent, I expect a response immediately.”
One leader believes, “My door is always open. I want people to tell me when there’s a problem.” Meanwhile, employees have learned that bringing up a problem usually results in more questions, defensiveness, or additional work. So the actual rule becomes: Don’t bring up a problem unless you already have the solution.
Nobody ever announced that rule.
People just learned it.
What we repeatedly experience becomes what we believe is expected.
That’s why unwritten rules can be so powerful. They aren’t created by what leaders say the culture is. They’re created by what happens every day.
I see this when I work with teams all the time. I’ll ask a seemingly simple question like, “What happens here when someone disagrees?”
And suddenly I get five different answers.
“We talk it through.”
“We’re supposed to talk it through.”
“Depends who you disagree with.”
“We usually just let it go.”
And then someone laughs.
The good news is that you don’t need a six-month culture initiative to start changing this. You need conversations.
Start naming the things people have been expected to figure out on their own.
What does “keep me updated” actually mean?
When should someone make a decision independently, and when should they check in?
How do we want to handle disagreement?
What does asking for help look like here?
What happens when someone makes a mistake?
How do we tell each other when something isn’t working?
I can already hear the comments… “This feels like I’m being extra.” Or “These questions would be really uncomfortable and out of the ordinary to ask.”
Yes. 100%. But if you continue not to ask them anyway, what is the cost? How is that going for you? You have to decide what makes you more uncomfortable—the lack of clarity about expectations? Or asking the questions?
A little reflection for you
Think about a team you’re part of, whether you lead it or not.
What are three unwritten rules people seem to have learned?
How would a brand-new person know those rules exist?
Are those rules helping people do their best work—or are people working around them?
And maybe the biggest question: What is something everyone seems to “know” that your team has never actually talked about?
Pick one.
Bring it into the room.
You don’t need a complicated exercise. You can simply say, “I think we may have an unwritten rule around this, and I’m curious whether everyone experiences it the same way.”
Then listen.
Because clarity doesn’t always come from creating another policy or procedure. Sometimes it comes from finally saying out loud what everyone has been quietly trying to figure out.
And if your team has a lot of things everyone “just knows”—or, even worse, everyone thinks they know—it may be time for some help getting those conversations started. That’s exactly the kind of work I do with teams. Reach out and let’s talk about what’s happening on yours.
Training matters.
But development is what happens when we give people the opportunity to use what they’re learning—and keep getting better at it.
